What punishment is fit for women who have abortions

[Erika]

if W and his right wing buds have their way in outlawing abortions?

Do they wish to press for murder charges? What legal role will the "father" play? Will the mother only be held responsible?

Will all miscarriages be subject to government investigation?

Will all pregnancies have to be recorded under the new "Defend life" tax subsidized program with enforcement powers?

[Erika]

1. C'mon this is reality under W

Alito finds no constitutional right for abortion. So what are the penalties going to be against women who have an abortion and will the father play any role? The GOP want no abortions, so let them start answering questions on the issue.

[dorktv]

2. I think that they will go with the death penalty for the doctors and

20 year sentences for the women.

[Erika]

3. and nothing for the father?

He will be held harmless?

[dorktv]

4. Well of COURSE! Boys will be boys and all that.

Remember these people feel that a woman is wrong for not saying no.

[Erika]

5. So boys will be exonerated from any responsibility?

Under the "boys will be boys" doctrine?

[dorktv]

6. Probably. After all you do not see them blocking male access

to condoms do you?

[Erika]

7. Good point

Thanks. Access to birth control is only being denied to females.

[dorktv]

8. Yes...fundies are about controlling women and not about actually

stopping sex.

[Erika]

9. So they don't mind if women are punished

and men held harmless?

[dorktv]

10. Exactly. She has failed a moral standard of theirs and so must

suffer as Eve suffered.

[nosmokes]

11. well, it was *eve*, not steve, that ate the apple ya know...

original sin anat.

[dorktv]

15. Steve was just there for the bitching tanning to be had.

[loyalsister]

20. If this were about abortion

they would actually be trying to reduce it with proven methods.
It has absolutely nothing to do with reducing the number of Abortions.
The less control women have over their reproduction the less they are able to have a strong sense of self determination.
Their version of the good 'ol days.

[loyalsister]

19. Or "harmed"

If Missouri is any indication
He'll have the right to recover damages.
They tested it with parental notification.
It didn't fly there, but I bet that they could convince people to force a woman to pay damages to a daddy who lost his baby.

[kenny blankenship]

13. To be consistent, they will need to apply an 'eye for an eye' to both

the doctor and the murderess--oops, almost said "patient"--seeking the abortion.

Conservatives are always telling us we have to have a death penalty to show that we honor life.... (Same deal with abortion: can't abort a 3 day gestation zygote because it has a soul already and the soul is the life not the body, so to honor human life you can't abort it.)
Conservatives are always telling us that we have to have mandatory sentencing for serious felonies...
And for mandatory sentencing to be at all conscienable, which is difficult since it removes the discretion of the judge in weighing mitigating/aggravating factors in sentencing, it has to be applied the same way, arriving at the same sentence for similar crimes.
Now then in the crime of abortion which is by their reasoning capital murder, there can be hardly less guilt on the part of the woman than on the part of the abortionist--so it is inescapably fair under Republican rules that the woman seeking the abortion should be put to death, and that this shall be the mandatory minimum sentence for judges to follow so that they don't coddle these criminals and so that they don't commit the injustice of burdening the doctor with the guilt of the woman. The woman and doctor are guilty together and their lives are forfeit: one life taken shall be answered with two. In the case of aborted twins Justice demands that we kill the woman, the doctor, and the whole fucking family of both of them.

[dorktv]

14. And the friends of the family if it is more then twins!

[Hekate]

12. Ask Kate Michelman about the good old days

Several years ago I read an interesting thing by a doctor who was an OB/GYN back in the day. He said every hospital had a ward for women with septic uterine infections -- these were understood to primarily be the women who had tried an illegal abortion. He said those wards disappeared after Roe vs. Wade.

Since it was considered murder unless authorized by a panel at the hospital, I suppose women would be prosecuted if they were found out. Abortionists (sic) certainly faced prison. (The panels, IIRC from my readings, were composed of doctors but often included shrinks or clergy as well.)

See if you can catch the Op-Ed piece Kate Michelman wrote for the Sunday LA Times. She's against Alito's nomination for SCOTUS, and it's personal. Her husband dumped her and their three young daughters, and then she discovered she was pregnant with their fourth kid. In order for her to obtain an abortion she had to go before a panel of doctors at the hospital, and then they required her to obtain her soon-to-be-ex-husband's permission in writing as well.

My favorite line had to do with Alito saying that having the husband sign off on his wife's abortion posed no undue burden since most women involved their husbands anyway. Kate said, "So only women for whom it is burdensome will find it an undue burden."

Hekate

[I_Make_Mistakes]

16. The way to attack it is twofold I think. So, if a pregnant woman

who can't have an abortion (the law was changed), doesn't eat to starve herself and the fetus, do the courts have the right to force feed her to save the fetus (it will draw the libertarians out of the party). I am sure there are other situations, so, the focus should be if, this becomes illegal, who owns the woman's body? And how far will we go to insure the fetus's right. I think we should look to the what happens when (it would scare the Hell out of me being female).

Secondly, if they think they can control a woman's body, then we should push for castration of rapist (yes, date rape included). I understand that rape is not a sexual crime (control, domination, etc) but at least, the women and girls would not get pregnant from the experience.

I tell you truly, if an average Repuke voter, thinks a man could lose his organs and control over his body (Roe overturn) he would not vote against RvW.

[Hekate]

18. Some states already treat a woman as a *vessel* for the unborn...

There are US judges who have jailed pregnant women for drug abuse in order to protect the fetus. That's right -- the woman is not in jail for her drug use, per se, but solely on behalf of the contents of her uterus.

This is a really thorny problem, as I am sure you can see, because on the one hand no one (emphatically including me) wants to see drug-damaged and addicted babies born, and on the other hand it does appear to be a very slippery slope as regards women's personal and bodily autonomy.

As to one of your other points, no, I don't think date-rapists should be castrated (although I admit I've sometimes had thoughts along those lines as regards serial rapists and child molestors...).

Hekate

[DanCa]

17. well here are some of the real penalites on stem cell research.

1) If i went outside the us to have stem cell I wouldn't be permitted back in the border.
2) There was an absorbent fine to use the word stem cell research - i can't remember the exact amount It was 10 ooo dollars i think.
3) Doctors would be fined and jailled for recommending stem cell research.
www.stemcellinformation@yahoo groups should have this information archieved.